Herald Blogs

As a sci-fi geek, when I heard of Facebook's changes, the first thing that came to mind was how it's becoming like Skynet -- and I wasn't the only one to think that.

All right, maybe it's an exaggeration to compare Facebook to the artificial intelligence software that tried to destroy mankind in the Terminator movies. But like the ubiquitous Skynet, it is integrating itself into many major websites in new ways.

Facebook is giving outside websites access to the information you make public. You should take the time to go back into your privacy settings and see what new ways it has attached itself to your online life.

For example, go on CNN.com and you'll see a widget that shows which CNN stories have been shared by people who are your Facebook friends. If you're not logged in to Facebook, it just shows what stories are popular with all Facebook users.

Some of these changes are cool and make sharing quicker -- such as being able to mark that you "like" a website without ever going to Facebook.

Or if you listen to music on Pandora.com , it can recommend playlists based on the artists you like on Facebook.

Your friends on Facebook can also share details about you via the websites they go to -- as long as you make that info available to everyone. The example Facebook uses is when a friend goes to a greeting card website, that site may prompt the friend that your birthday is coming up (if your birthday isn't private).

Here's how to control what is being shared on these sites:

• Control what your friends share: Under Privacy settings, click ``Applications and Websites.'' You'll see the option to control what info websites can tap into from your friends' accounts and share (as long as that info is public).

• Control what sites automatically personalize: Under the same ``Applications and Websites'' area, the last option is to control ``Instant Personalization.'' Here you can turn it off completely. If you want it to be used for some sites and not others, each site has a way to opt out.

If you come across a site that uses instant personalization, such as Yelp.com, you can click "No, thanks,'' at a Facebook prompt on the top of the page and it won't connect.

Two Miami Lakes residents filed a lawsuit Tuesday, asking a
Miami-Dade circuit judge to declare their e-mail addresses private and
not subject to public records rules.

Ceasar Mestre, a lawyer
and town resident, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the residents, Lynn
Matos and Jack McCall. Matos serves on the town's task force for youth
activities while McCall is the former president of the town's Optimist
Club. The suit does not seek any money.

The lawsuit comes a
week after several residents urged the town to keep their e-mail
addresses private and Mestre, who is running for Town Council, announced
plans for the legal action.

Under Florida law, anyone can inspect and copy state, county and
federal records. There are about 1,100 exemptions to the law, including
Social Security numbers, records identifying sexual abuse victims and
home addresses of law enforcement officers.

According to the
filing, the residents gave Mayor Michael Pizzi their e-mail addresses to
receive updates about community activities and did not consent to them
being disclosed ``to any third party for any reason."

"The
emails addresses are personal information that can be used to stalk,
harass, engage in identity theft, hijack emails,'' Mestre said in the
filing.

"Even if the content of the emails of the Mayor are
public, the BCC [blind carbon copy] list is not a public record,'' he
later wrote.

Civic activist Dr. Dave Bennett has requested the
e-mail addresses of those receive update or town events sent by the
mayor and maintains that they are public records.

Councilman
Richard Pulido has also requested the e-mails that receive the mayor's
updates, which have been denied.

The town's litigator, Gonzalo
Dorta, previously advised Miami Lakes officials that the e-mails are
public, but Dorta said there are conflicting legal opinions whether the
e-mail addresses should be made public and advised not making them
available.

That's the question SeaWorld's social media team is struggling with after a trainer was killed during a show by a whale named Tilikum.

Shamu still does shows at the park, but the humorous voice behind the Shamu Twitter account -- which has engaged with fans with jokes, trivia and photos -- hasn't spoken since Feb. 25.

With over 10,000 followers, the Shamu account was a highly successful way for the theme park to get involved with the community and promote the park. Currently, the park is sending all marketing messages from the vanilla-flavored account SeaWorld_Parks.

To SeaWorld's credit, its marketing team worked hard after the tragedy to address the touchy questions and comments thrown upon them on Facebook, Twitter and other sites. Instead of dodging questions about whale captivity, the team would responded to as many people as they could with how they care for the animals and the conservation work they do.

As time passed, the page filled with fans commenting about their love for the park and the whales.

Anne Fischer, the senior manager for lifestyle and digital marketing at SeaWorld, traveled from Orlando to the Florida Atlantic University campus in Davie to discuss this with the audience at last week's Social Media Club South Florida gathering.

She said in hindsight, her team would have done a few things differently. The SeaWorld team had not previously crafted strategy of how to handle a crisis like that.

"We weren't prepared to the degree we should have been,'' Fischer said.

She wished she could have done more, such as being able to understand tools to monitor what was being said on the Web. Or being more on top of deleting the inappropriate photos people were posting on the Facebook page.

She asked the audience if the Shamu Twitter account should be reactivated. After the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, is it too soon for humor? Or has enough time passed? And if the account reactivates, will it have the same tone?

Audience members had a hard time giving a definite answer. One person said it would be crazy not to use the Shamu account because of how large of a marketing tool it is for the park, but it's too soon to launch it now.

I'm on the side of bringing the account back. It always has been a favorite account of this column; every tweet brought a smile to Niala and I, and the world could use more smiles.

I'd start it back slowly. Give it a calm tone of showcasing cute photos of other animals. And I wouldn't make any cracks about being hungry or trivia about the strength of killer whales.

Looking for a dinner deal tonight? More than 40 South Florida businesses are giving deals today to tech geeks in honor of Foursquare Day. Use the Foursquare program at participating stores and restaurants, and you might get some perks.

Foursquare Day was an idea cooked up by a fan of the Foursquare application, which is a location-based-social-network-game-thing used on phones and shared with friends on Facebook and Twitter. Much like how Pi (3.14) has Pi Day on March 14th, a Tampa man thought Foursquare Day should be April 16th (4²=16).

And it wasn't long until his idea spread to fans in other large cities. But before I explain the Foursquare Day deals, here's how the Foursquare application works:

You download the Foursquare application to your cellphone, or if your phone doesn't use apps, then use text messages to participate.

When you arrive at a restaurant, mall, gym, grocery store, place of work -- anywhere -- just go into the application and "check in" by saying you arrived. You can also make comments about the place.

You can sync it with all your connections on Twitter and Facebook and see where your friends are hanging out.

The competitive part is seeing who can check into the same location the most times -- and then they rack up points and badges for bragging rights.

There's been lots written about Foursquare being dangerous for privacy reasons (it's easy to stalk or rob you when you're always saying where you are). Some hate it for other reasons. When Foursquare users post on Facebook every time they've checked into an area, it feels either like they are bragging, or simply put, a loser. (When you check in at the Taco Bell near your house every other night, it just looks sad.)

But Foursquare promotes it as a way to discover new
places to eat, shop, etc. based on what your friends say they are doing.

Here's where the Foursquare Day part comes in. Some businesses are getting in on the game by saying if you "check in" on Foursquare today at their establishment during a certain time, you can get a deal.

For example, the Pizza Fusion chain gives a free topping for anyone who checks in while there, and if you earn enough check in points to become a "mayor" of that area, you get a free bottle of organic wine. But on Foursquare Day, it kicked the freebies up a notch with a free pizza when you purchase a tea.

A day like today is to help draw more awareness of the application. Businesses who are participating are hoping that all the tweets and Facebook posts about people "checking in" to their establishment will help bring more awareness to their company.

Although most participants are small businesses, McDonald's is one major chain that is participating at a large level. If you check into a McDonald's today until 7 p.m., and if the McDonald's Twitter account notices the check in, you'll get a coupon for a free lunch.

But if you're a business owner who isn't using Foursquare, I'd at least monitor it today to see what is being said about your brand, and how many people are using the application to check in today. It might give you a sense of how popular it is with your clients, and if you should consider participating in it to get more people interested in your product.

It goes without saying that most people have no idea what Foursquare is. I don't know anyone in my circle of friends or relatives that uses it. One person in my company has "checked in" to The Miami Herald. Most folks I know who use it are the local tech geeks I follow on Twitter.

It's an interesting experiment for businesses to try, but at the end of the day, is it worth your time if not many people use the application? What do you think?

But if you do decide to use Foursquare, don't lie about your location. Or else...

In one of my other roles at the Herald, I do a weekly web business show - this week, we featured an interview with Roy Krause, the president and CEO of SFN Group, formerly known as Spherion. They're one of the largest staffing companies in the country and Krause spent quite a bit of time talking about how important expanding your network is - if you didn't catch the interview, here it is:

For those who need a refresher on social media sites like LinkedIn that deal specifically with the professional world, here are a few videos we did a while back with LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman about his site.

Some more practical tips: Bridget did a post last year about how to link people to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile - it's a good reminder as well to check yourself out online and see what comes up, as all potential employers do these days.

Finally, another tip: how to connect your Twitter account to LinkedIn - staying active on both networks and saving time!

What tips do you have to increase your network, especially in the face of job hunting?

If you're worried about what personal information is out there on the Web about you, be aware of Spokeo.com.

I typed in my name and it listed a good deal of information that I would never dare put on my social networks. It listed my address. Everyone in my household. My age. My relationship status. My zodiac. My ethnicity. It didn't know my occupation (ironically the easiest information to find about me).

It listed my interests (which it says are toys and reading). It says I have children when I don't. And for a price you could find out my credit and all the info about me on social networks.

But there is a way to take it off.

According Spokeo's site, it "aggregates publicly available information from phone books, social networks, marketing surveys, real estate listings, business websites, and other public sources. Spokeo does not originate data or publish user-generated content like Facebook or MySpace.''

That should make you think twice before filling out some online survey about your household. Here's how to get delisted from Spokeo:

On the very bottom right of the homepage, click the gray "Privacy'' link. Enter the URL of your profile. Type in an e-mail address. Spokeo then sends a link to that e-mail address for you to get rid of your listing.

My parents aren't even on any social network, but they were on here. As our column often points out, there's a lot on the Internet about you. And even when you think you're being good by using privacy settings in Facebook, it's still hard to control everything.

Be aware that there also are sites that aggregate every little thing you've ever put publicly on the Web and put it in a social search engine. Go to PeekYou.com and search your name. It had my old MySpace handle, MySpace picture and an incorrect age. It's all stuff I put on the Web, so it's not terrible, but it's not exactly the image I care to represent my professional persona. You can't delete a profile, but you can become a member and "contribute'' the correct information to any profile.

PeekYou says: "The information on PeekYou is already out there. By organizing that data into a better, more useful search engine, we in turn help the public become more aware of both the potential powers and liabilities associated with public knowledge.''

You can contribute by deleting fields. I deleted a bunch and it still had my name, city I worked in and my job. I can upload a photo I like or write the bio the way I want it -- if I so desire.

On the bright side, these sites typically don't appear high on the list when you search your name on Google, Yahoo! or Bing. The popular social networks you belong to, like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter, will usually be the first results that show up.